Western Digital increases MyBook HDD's capacity to 2TB

March 27, 2009 With people’s hoarding of digital media, both legal and illegal, reaching epidemic proportions, capacities of storage devices to store all this digital goodness have steadily increased. Probably the most popular means of storing large amounts of data has been external hard drives. They are portable, relatively cheap and offer a fuss free way to increase a system’s storage capacity. So in an inevitable move Western Digital has expanded its My Book family of external hard drives to include a 2 TB capacity, the largest available capacity in a single-drive system.

The new 2 TB My Book family is designed to keep everyone from creative power users on a Mac to home users on a PC happy with the range including the My Book Studio Edition, My Book Mac Edition, My Book Home Edition and My Book Essential Edition models.

The My Book Studio Edition and My Book Mac Edition are aimed at creative professionals and video editors working on Macs coming preformatted in HFS+ with the My Book Studio Edition equipped with high speed FireWire 400/800 and eSATA interfaces on top of the standard USB 2.0 interface. The My Book Studio Edition carries a five year limited warranty while those purchasing the USB only My Book Mac Edition will have to bit a bit more careful as it carries only a one year limited warranty. Aimed at home PC users the My Book Home Edition comes equipped with continuous backup software and high-speed eSATA and Firewire 400 as well as USB 2.0 interfaces, and carries a 3-year limited warranty while the My Book Essential Edition is USB2.0 only and carries a one year warranty.

All drives in the new 2TB range include SmartPower features that turns the drive on and off with the computer and Safe Shutdown that prevents the drive from being powered down until all the data has been written when connected via USB or FireWire. The units also save power by going into standby mode after 10 minutes of inactivity while a Kensington Security Slot allows users to secure the drive to a desk with the separate purchase of a Kensington lock kit. All drives except the My Book Essential Edition also include a capacity gauge to see at a glance how much capacity is available on the drive.

With 2TB to play with users now have no excuse not to backup their valuable data and plenty of room to store all that digital media we’ve all become so good at collecting. Western Digital's My Book Studio Edition, My Book Home Edition and My Book Essential Edition 2 TB external hard drives are available now while the My Book Mac Edition 2 TB external drives will be available next month. Prices range from USD$329.99 to USD$379.99, depending on drive model and capacity.